Hitting a Brick Wall

Between my allergies and looking up sites on Jem and the Holograms, it was almost 3:30 in the morning before I finally got to sleep. Needless to say, I wasn't up until after 10. Started the late morning-early afternoon with this week's laundry session. Dad was the only one home, and even he eventually left to do errands. I read a book on changing careers I took out of the library and took a walk to the Oaklyn Library, enjoying the gorgeous, upper-60s-and-sunny weather.

After I got home, I had a very quick lunch and went back out again to the Haddon Township Library for volunteering. There were piles of DVDs leftover from the weekend to put away, so I was very busy.

I asked the ladies about possibly finding a library assistant job in the Camden County Library System. They said that while they no long require a Civil Service Test, most library assistant jobs are only for 15-20 hours a week. That's no good. I need at least 20 hours or more a week to survive. I'm barely surviving on what I'm making now with 20-30 hours a week and $11.80 an hour.

I was very disappointed and very upset. I was sure this would be the perfect job for me to earn good money for a tutor and for college and to get some experience doing what I want to do. (There's no way in the universe I'll pass the GRD or whatever exam is needed to get into grad school without a tutor. I'm terrible at math. I just barely passed that in college.) I want to do more than volunteer. I want to work in a library all the time, and for a lot more than 15 hours a week. I thought this was right.

I did find some interesting movies and sets at the Library. I took out the classic French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (I don't normally take out foreign films, but I've heard so many good things about this, it would be worth getting past the subtitles) and The Misfits, the modern-set western that was the last movie for Hollywood legends Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift.

The best find, though, was the full series set for Fairie Tale Theater. Shelly Duvall created, appeared in, and narrated many of the episodes of this long-running HBO family series, in which popular actors of the 80s appeared in retellings of famous and not-so-famous fairy stories. My family loved these when I was a kid. I watched "Cinderella," with Jennifer Beals as the title lass and Matthew Broderick as her prince charming, and the all-black "Puss In Boots," with Ben Verreen as the clever cat, the late Gregory Hines as his befuddled master, and Alfre Woodward as his princess, during dinner at home.